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Disputes Over the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea

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Disputes Over the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea chapter 2 Disputes over the Northern Limit Line in the West Sea i Introduction The Northern Limit Line (nll) in the West Sea/Yellow Sea1 and the five small islands off the nll lie at the heart of military tensions on the Korean Penin- sula. At present the Korean Peninsula is technically in a state of war since the South and the North ended the Korean War with the Armistice Agreement. Since then, the two Koreas have disputed over the legality and validity of the nll as the de jure maritime border. The disputed nll has become a source of armed conflicts as the two sides have clashed with each other in the waters off the nll on many occasions. While heavily armed forces confront each other along the military demarcation line on land in the Korean Peninsula, the nll, along the five West Islands in the immediate vicinity, is a flashpoint of armed conflicts in the sea. Deeply rooted in the turbulent contemporary history of the Korean Penin- sula, the issue of the nll involves a wide range of complicated international military, political, economic, and legal factors. Given the status of the nll as an essential part of the armistice to end the Korean War, the nll issue is not only an internal matter of the two Koreas, but also an international issue in which the parties to the Korean War are also concerned. In recent years, North Korea has persistently pursued the development of nuclear weapons, despite comprehensive u.n. sanctions on its nuclear tests. Along with belligerent North Korea’s attempts to become a nuclear state, its provocations across the nll are posing a grave threat to peace on the Korean Peninsula and stability in Northeast Asia. This chapter highlights the nature of nll disputes in the West Sea in terms of legal validity and security. This will examine how the nll issue has devel- oped and what factors are at stake with the nll and the five West Islands. 1 The Yellow Sea between the Korean Peninsula and China is also referred to as the West Sea. The West Sea is named after its location on the west coast of the Korean Peninsula. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi �0.��63/9789004344��8_003 <UN> 18 chapter 2 ii Establishment of the nll in the West Sea The nll is a sea boundary line in the West Sea/Yellow Sea that runs between the five West Islands (Paekryeong-do,2 Daechung-do, Socheng-do, Yeonpyeong- do, and Woo-do) under control of South Korea and the North Korea’s coast. The origin of the nll goes back to the Korean War (1950–1953). On 25 June 1950, North Korea, with Soviet and Chinese backing, invaded South Korea in an effort to reunify the Korean Peninsula by force of arms. At the outbreak, the Korean War was a civil war. But it developed into a large-scale international war as 16 other countries, led by the u.s., under the flag of the United Nations (u.n.), fought alongside South Korea. Meanwhile, China intervened massively on the other side to save North Korea from defeat. The bloody three-year war ended with the Armistice Agreement, signed on 27 July 1953 between the United Nations Command (unc), the Chinese People’s Volunteers of China, and the Korean People’s Army of North Korea. A month after the signing of the Armistice Agreement, the nll was unilater- ally established by the unc for the purpose of preventing military conflicts between the South and the North in the West Sea. During armistice talks, the unc and the communist counterparts agreed to establish a land border, called the Military Demarcation Line (mdl), along with a 2-km Demilitarized Zone (dmz) on either side of the line. However, they failed to draw maritime boundaries in the West Sea and the East Sea due to conflicting claims as to the breadth of territorial waters. The unc claimed 3-nautical mile territorial waters, which was an internationally accepted zone at the time, as opposed to a 12-nautical mile claim by the communist side. The communists argued for a 12-nautical mile zone due to concerns over the unc naval blockade.3 Due to the unc’s naval supremacy over North Korea through- out the Korean War, a blockade effectively cut off the North Korean coast. Despite the unc’s argument that the Armistice Agreement prohibits naval blockade of any kind, the communists demanded the deletion of the entire article regarding the sea demarcation line.4 Instead, the two sides agreed to provide that ‘the five West Islands shall remain under the military control of Commander-in-Chief of the unc,’ while ‘all the islands lying to the north and west of the provincial boundary line between Hwanghae-do and Kyonggi-do 2 ‘do’ in Korean means an island and the five islands off the nll are collectively called the five West Islands. 3 Ministry of National Defense, Republic of Korea, ‘The Republic of Korea Position Regarding the Northern Limit Line,’ available at https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/1341897/ rok-position-regarding-northern-limit-line-2002.pdf. 4 Ibid. <UN>.
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